Server will not boot with drives plugged in

[ozwald]

Hey guys,

i know this is not a Freenas issue but i have run out of ideas and google searches.

i have a couple of old IBM x3550 M3 servers and 4 IBM M1015 cards i want to use for some freenas projects.
I have successfully flashed the M1015 to 9221-8i IT firmware and the card is able to "see" the drives.

the issue arises when I reboot the server, it doesn't finish it POST and gets stuck at this screen:
If i remove the drives it posts normally and i can choose my boot device or BIOS setup.

Any suggestions would be great.

 

[blueether]

My old M3s (same m1015 cards) take a very long time to post (at that last screen) and I think at one stage one would get stuck at one stage but I cant remember what fixed it but it mught have been one of the options in the LSI config.

I have the boot ROM flashed on one card and not on the other and I think the card without boot much faster and hasn't had issues.

Not much to go on but they do work for freenas, here is one with 28 drives attached. Vault and MediaStore are on board, VMStore and Backup are attached via SAS to an old KTN-STL3

 

[ozwald]

thanks blue,

it just weird that everything works normally when i pull the drives. i will give it another go and see if it eventually boots.